What's up in WoW lately?

With the Cataclysm expansion pack still a few months off most likely, there?s still plenty to do in World of Warcraft.

The new ?Random Heroic? awards, and the ?Cross-Realm Dungeon Group Finder? feature are helping folks who just didn?t have time or much luck finding groups new life by getting you into the dungeons relatively quick. You can select any of the dungeons you qualify for (Gear level and quest prerequisites (if any)), select the role you character can fill (Tank, Healer, DPS) and inidicate if you know that dungeon?s bosses well enough to act as leader. If the only role you can provide is DPS, and if you select only a particular dungeon, you may have a wait on your hands, but if just select ?Random Herioc? then with any role, it shouldn?t take too long to get into a group.

The Random Heroic rewards you with 2 Emblems of Frost for completing the dungeon (the first time you do it each day), subsequent random runs the same day reward you with 2 Emblems of Triumph, and each boss in the dungeon coughs up an Emblem o Triumph as well in addition to that boss? regular loot drops. These emblems can be traded in for various high-level gear or rare crafting materials. The Frost rewards are much higher level and more powerful then the Triumph rewards, but even a non-raider can get caught up by running the dungeons enough.

In addition, also for non-raiders who either want better gear or want to get their gear caught up so they can start raiding (and there is also a ?Raid? group finder as well, although I haven?t used that much, so I don?t know how much it helps. Most raids are down by guilds in the past, but I?m starting to see more ?PuG? raids these days (Pick up Groups).

Also to help with the gear up, three new 5 man dungeons, the Forge of Souls (which is a pre-req for), The Pit of Saron (a pre-req for), and the Halls of Reflection. On heroic mode these have the potential to drop an item that starts a quest chain that leads to a nice, high-powered weapon as well. These three dungeons also have phenomenal drops in terms of equipment, although you need decent gear to start with to qualify to enter these dungeons, the rewards are worth it.